Robert Shafer (conductor)

Shafer won first prize in composition at Le Conservatoire Américain in 1969. In 1989, he was honored by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia with an Outstanding Faculty Award for his outstanding public service, research, and teaching. In February 2000, Shafer was honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences with a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for a live-performance recording of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem.

As an educator, Shafer's work at James Madison High School attracted national attention, especially for his conducting a first-rate madrigal group. He remained on the high school faculty from 1968 to 1975. From 1972 to 2007, Shafer was music director of The Washington Chorus, a leading choral ensemble in the U.S. capital. When he served as music director of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, he composed and conducted a setting of Tu es Petrus in honor of Pope John Paul’s October 1979 visit to Washington, D.C. In 1983, Shafer was appointed artist-in-residence and professor of music at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA.

Robert John Shafer, Jr. (born January 1, 1946) is a Grammy Award-winning American conductor, classical composer, educator and church musician (pianist, organist). He has served as artistic director of the City Choir of Washington since its launch in September 2007.

Shafer was born on January 1, 1946, in Mooresville, North Carolina, the son of Col. Robert J. Shafer, USAF (Ret). He started studying piano at age 5. Shafer moved with his parents to Germany in 1951, where they were stationed as part of the United States Air Force. His family settled in Vienna, Virginia, in 1954.